Laws and Games and Summer Memories – Friendly Fill-Ins to Celebrate the Small Things for Friday Fun

“The Friendly Fill-Ins are four fun and easy statements to complete. Ellen of 15andmeowing provides the first two statements and the final two are offered by myself. We try to make sure they will be fun to both answer and share. On Friday, the linky will be posted at or about 12:00 AM. Please come back, link up, and share your thoughts!”

And away we go! Here are this week’s statements with my fill-ins:

1. A law I would like to see passed is…I honestly don’t have an answer for that – it’s not something I think about (though I suppose I should). I bet I’ll be inspired by others’ answers, though!

2. My favorite card game is…Thirty-One.

We always play with quarters (vs. the ‘original’ of a $5 bill where you fold down the corners when you lose). The recommended number of people for play is 2 to 9, but I’m pretty sure some of our camping trips in a large group resulted in more than 9 people.

When I was a kid, my favorite late grandmother always loved to play gin rummy or hearts wth me – she usually let me win, so both of those games are also favorites and invoke great memories.

And in the ‘more recent’ game mode, Cards Against Humanity is hysterical to play – you have to have a sense of humor (or in some cases, a warped sense of humor), but man oh man, the two times I’ve played it with friends we about died laughing. And since laughter is the best medicine, you can consider it therapeutic…heh!

Oh, and I should mention I love to play Blackjack – though I don’t do it often. But I seem to be lucky in that regard, especially if you look at a birthday weekend in Vegas years ago when I was gifted $100 to play at the tables – I turned that into $900. So yeah, I’d say I had fun.

3. With Summer unofficially here…We’ve been getting some heat! But we’re not complaining, because we’ll take warm sunny days over rainy days in a heartbeat! Plus the hubby got some great progress on cleaning up the yard – since the house was vacant for over a year while the sellers fixed it up (and the previous owners rented this house out, which, according to neighbors, had 11 people living here!) the yard pretty much went unattended. The hubby said he’ll have lots to do to get things ship shape every sunny day he has.

I did post this funny on Instagram the other day when he was making progress:

A post shared by Stacy Johnson (@stacyuncorked) on May 30, 2017 at 2:52pm PDT

4. A favourite Summer memory is…Camping with my family. My dad worked hard to support our family of 6, and back then we couldn’t afford big expensive trips like Disneyland or Hawaii like all my friends seemed to be doing. Instead, his 3 to 4-week vacation he got every year, we’d split between camping in the mountains and camping at the ocean.

We’d innertube down Bumping River:

And go fishing – nothing like having fresh fish over the campfire for dinner.

Then we’d play in the sand and jump the waves at the ocean:

And fish off the rock jetty:

I remember one year we did both in one fell swoop – spent a week-and-a-half in the mountains, then drove straight to the ocean for another week-and-a-half. We always camped with friends of the family, and we always brought our bikes with us, so us kids would ride all over kingdom come. The benefit of living in the Pacific Northwest is that going to the mountains or going to the ocean is a no-brainer, since they’re both a quick and easy drive.

We had a cool/funky trailer we used – similar to this:

Only it was a custom trailer that was the same shape only bigger, and made out of wood – and painted really cool two-tone blues.

The upper bunk was a full sized bed, so us kids would sleep up top cross-wise, and my parents slept on the bed below. When we got too big to fit, we acquired a huge green army tent from my grandpa that us kids were relegated to. We weren’t fans of that tent, because it got hot inside, being that it was a dark army green and the canvas was thick, and if there were windows, they were minimal. So I spent a lot of time hanging out with my late grandmother (playing cards, of course) in her camper where it wasn’t stifling.

I’m celebrating that summer is right around the corner, and the kids will be out of school for the summer months in just two weeks! While I’ll still be getting up way too early to have coffee with the hubby before he goes off to work, at least the morning events following won’t be all rush-rush-rush and nag-nag-nag…heh!

That’s a wrap! Hope you join in the fun! Check out the other Friendly Fill-Ins participants and join in if you feel the urge for some fun!

About StacyUncorked

After 20+ years in the Corporate World and years of infertility, Stacy was surprised when Princess Nagger made her miraculous appearance - deciding to forgo the career and stay home was a no-brainer. As if her hands weren't full enough, 8 years later she and her husband added Little Dude through adoption, adding a whole new dimension (of crazy) to their family and even more sleepless nights.
When she’s not refereeing kids, dogs and cats, she loves to write, hence the reason she decided to start her little blog, and because she never got a baby book to mark milestones, this was the next best thing. She also enjoys doing reviews and giveaways for products she or her family would willingly use and can stand behind.
She loves to cook and try new techniques to turn ordinary into extraordinary. Crafty by nature, she takes on a lot of unique projects and enjoy seeing the end result. Her favorite, of course, is making her award winning wine out of fruits and grapes. Experiments with water currently underway.

It’s time once again for some Friday fill-in fun, the perfect way to wrap up the week and kick off the weekend! Hey, better late than never, right? From Ann of McGuffy’s Reader: “The Friendly Fill-Ins are four fun and easy … Continue reading →

It’s time once again for some Friday fill-in fun, the perfect way to wrap up the week and kick off the weekend! From Ann of McGuffy’s Reader: “The Friendly Fill-Ins are four fun and easy statements to complete. Ellen of 15andmeowing … Continue reading →

11 thoughts on “Laws and Games and Summer Memories – Friendly Fill-Ins to Celebrate the Small Things for Friday Fun”

Thank you for participating in the fill-ins, you always have great answers. Those sound like wonderful family trips and I love that camper. Cards Against Humanity sounds like my kind of game. Have a great weekend!

Wow, it sounds like you had awesome vacations with your dad, even with having a hot tent. I only remember ever taking one trip with my daddy as a little girl. We had to take one of my aunts and my cousins back home to Virginia. On the way there, we stopped to eat on the side of the road. When we got loaded back in the car (11 people in a 1960-something Plymouth), I was relegated to the floor. My cousin asked if everyone was ready for her to close the door. We all said yes, only I didn’t know that I wasn’t. My foot was in the door and I ended up with a cracked big toe bone. I couldn’t walk due to the pain. All the other kids were playing in the ocean and I couldn’t. That is, until my daddy picked me up and carried me into the ocean. He didn’t want me to miss that moment. That is a fond memory, big green and purple big toe and all. 🙂

I’ve read a bunch of answers people wrote for the FFI about passing a law. You’re right, there were a lot of cool answers – things I’d never thought about but really good ideas. Yay for summer and more time to relax and enjoy. Have a great week!

Your summer memories of time spent camping with the family sound wonderful. My family never went on vacation. The closest we came to a vacation was the year we visited my aunt and her hubby near Williamsburg, Virginia. We stayed with them so our cost was minimal. All of us kids slept in the living room on the floor and sofa. lol

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Stacy Swenson Johnson

After 20+ years in the Corporate World and years of
infertility, Stacy was surprised when Princess Nagger made her miraculous appearance
- deciding to
forgo the career and stay home was a no-brainer. As if her hands weren’t full
enough, 8 years later she and her husband added Little Dude through adoption,
adding a whole new dimension to their family and even more sleepless nights.

When she’s not refereeing kids, dogs and cats, she loves to write, hence the
reason she decided to start her little blog, and because she never got a baby
book to mark milestones, so this was the next best thing. She also enjoys doing reviews and giveaways for
products she or her family would willingly use and can stand behind.

She loves to cook and try new techniques to turn ordinary into extraordinary.
Crafty by nature, she takes on a lot of unique projects and enjoy seeing the end
result. Her favorite, of course, is making her award winning wine out of fruits
and grapes. Experiments with water currently underway.